Student CubeSats Launch Toward the ISS for Radio and Radiation Tests

Two student-built CubeSats are on their way to the International Space Station after the 13 October 2026 launch of SpaceX’s CRS-35 cargo mission. PROVES-Maia and PROVES-Taygeta will use the station as a staging point before deployment into their own orbits.

The launch announcement records liftoff at 6:33 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The satellite missions combine hands-on engineering education with experiments in amateur-radio communication.

A university’s first spacecraft

Texas State University’s account describes Maia as its first university-owned and operated satellite to reach space. The university’s Space Lab built and tested it, and plans to command it from its own ground station after deployment.

Maia carries MOSAIC, a system developed at Texas State for trying out instruments and spacecraft components. Its payload includes a university-designed sensor for radiation in low Earth orbit. Students from several technical disciplines contributed to the hardware, software and preparations.

The distinction between launch and deployment matters. Texas State says Maia will spend time aboard the station before being released. Contact and independent mission operations follow that release; today’s launch alone does not establish that every experiment has worked.

Shared hardware, different experiments

The 13 October CubeSat mission overview places both spacecraft in the Pleiades Five collaboration. Its openly documented PROVES platform lets university teams build on a shared spacecraft design.

Maia is intended to relay amateur-radio messages. Taygeta, a collaboration involving Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio College, carries a camera and a radiation experiment alongside its radio mission. Operators on the ground are expected to be able to request images and measurements.

The programme also plans to test communication between spacecraft using the open-source DRIFT routing protocol. Those demonstrations remain mission objectives. Their eventual results will show how well the shared platform works as a practical route into spaceflight for student teams.